Signature Request... Advice handouts...

[Calego]

It is not your expected size (because it is too big for in my opinion), but I think this is my proposal:

Hmmm... Interesting, lets see here.

The Good:

• You've found your favorite style and you can use it quite well.
  
• The Character you found is good, also has been cut out from whatever background he had very well
  
• The Blood Diamond Sort of graphical effect is brilliant... I'd never have thought of doing it like that.
  

The Not-So-Good:

• The Primary thing here I see wrong is that there is no Unifying theme or color scheme. Now mind you, the Firefly isn't the prettiest ship on the block but There could still have been a more unified color scheme. I think I'd have used red seeing as that's the color of the Blood diamonds.
  
• The Background isn't exactly what I had in mind when I said Space. Perhaps I could have been more clear and said solar systemish but... yeah. Rather than a starscape I was thinking more along the lines of a Space Scene w/ planets and nebulae, etc...
  
• The Text doesn't flow very well with the rest of the sig. For one thing its not in the best of places, being right in the middle and overlapping a bit on the ship. It also seems to be a font from a horror movie... Thats the Name, the quote text is what looks like the Freelancer Font, which is IMO extremely bland in all cases except when used in Freelancer.
  
• I guess what I don't like is the lack of unity in it. Nothing seems to blend together to live in harmony with everything else in the sig.
  

Overall Rating (1-10):
4 - Not a total loss with some redeeming qualities, certainly not your best, I've seen and loved some of your other sigs, this one I guess was a little tough though.

Suggestions:

• Try as much as you can to Blend everything into one masterpiece. The main Idea behind a signature (or so i've been "taught") is that every element is supposed to act together to form a single graphic. Blending is the main word. Everything, the text, the colors, the border even needs to work together.
  
• This one is minor but still, I've found that drop shadows have the most effect when they goo off of two sides, rather than just one...
  
• Try finding some good space stock and generating your own space backgrounds for sigs. If you already do this then great! But I'd suggest using stock on DeviantArt.com. If you haven't got a deviantart account get one. I've even asked two stock artists if I could use their stock off of deviantart.com (just because I'm trying to get into the habit of doing things in a more legal fashion)
  
• Try to make more depth in these kinds of sigs, if you're going to have something pop out, make it pup out a lot. Not by a few pixels, it adds effect to the effect.
  

Generic Suggestion Newsflash Inside Tip to Newbies and Oldies alike...

One of my favorite ways of doing text is using the Layer Blend modes, Try overlay with pure white text, you may need to move it around to see it better or you may need to duplicate the layer and add a faint stroke to it, but this makes the text blend better.

Some of the best things in graphics happen by accident, so mess around push buttons, you can always hit Ctrl/Command + Z

Alright that's it for today, I'll come back to yours tomorrow Serpentis.

EDIT:

Pardon my intrusion but most of the sigs presented have typography issues, not image issues.

True, but I've seen my fair share of those with image issues as well. This is what I'm hoping to conquer all with.
For the less linguistically learned, Typography = "the art and techniques of arranging type" AKA Text....

Please, Rand, Feel free to offer any tips to the public here. There's no intrusion. I don't want to appear as "the man who has it all down" because I don't... I'm learning new stuff most every time I open photoshop

I meant to say this earlier but forgot, If any other people want to offer advice here feel free but I only ask that there be no insulting/taking of insults here, this thread could very easily turn into a flame war (I for one am rather defensive about some of my work). So feel free to comment on the works presented here, but do so intelligently and thouroughly (no posts similar to "That looks cool" See this for similar concept...).

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